In the U.S., there are approximately 268,000 highway-rail and pedestrian crossings. In an average year, more people die at highway-rail grade crossings than in commercial airline crashes. Oftentimes, the cause of a highway-rail or pedestrian crossing accident is that the driver fails to pay attention to highway conditions.
Most of the highway-rail and pedestrian crossing accidents are preventable. Despite present measures such as traffic lights, stop signs, rail crossing lights (cross-buck signs), railroad gates or other markings, signs or indicators of the potentially dangerous highway location, accidents continue to occur.
Many drivers fail to pay attention to traffic signals because of their location on the side of the road and also because the signals are difficult to see in fog. However, most drivers, even when not paying close attention, do look at the road when driving and would tend to notice a highway warning system embedded in the roadway.